1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an apparatus for supplying a belt-loop material to a cutting device of a sewing system and particularly relates to the art of positioning the belt-loop material in the direction of width thereof.
2. Related Art Statement
There is known a sewing system which sews belt-loop pieces to a material of a garment such as a pair of trousers, or a skirt, so that a belt may pass through the belt loops made of the belt-loop pieces. The known sewing system includes a twin-needle sewing machine which sews the belt-loop pieces to the garment material, and a belt-loop-piece ("BLP") supplying device, a cutting device, and a belt-loop-material ("BLM") supplying device which are provided in the vicinity of the sewing machine. The BLM supplying device supplies, in each operation cycle, a predetermined length of a connected belt-loop material including one or more connection portions where two long materials are connected to each other, to the cutting device, which cuts off the predetermined length of the material and provides a belt-loop piece having two straight or V-shaped cut ends. The BLP supplying device supplies the belt-loop piece to the twin-needle sewing machine from its lateral side, that is, to a sewing position where the sewing machine sews the belt-loop piece to the garment material.
FIG. 21 shows a known BLM supplying device 130 and a known cutting device 50 of a known sewing system. The BLM supplying device 130 includes a horizontal support plate 32 which is provided in the vicinity of the cutting device 50. The support plate 32 supports a first and a second guide member 133, 134 such that the two guide members 133, 134 extend parallel to each other, in a feeding direction, F, in which a connected belt-loop material 7 is fed toward the cutting device 50 by a feeder roller 41. Each guide member 133, 134 is attached to the support plate 32 with two screws 135 such that a position of each guide member in a direction perpendicular to the feeding direction F is adjustable. The feeder roller 41 is provided at a position corresponding to a downstream end portion of the support plate 32 as seen in the feeding direction F. The support plate 32 and the two guide members 133, 134 cooperate with one another to provide or define a straight guide groove 136 which guides a front end portion of the connected belt-loop material 7 delivered from a BLM storing device (not shown) including a reel around which the belt-loop material 7 is wound.
Each time the feeder roller 41 is rotated by a drive motor (not shown) to supply a predetermined length of the belt-loop material 7 to the cutting device 50, a fixed and a movable blade 59, 60 of the cutting device 50 cooperate with each other to cut off the predetermined length of the material 7 by two cutting operations, that is, the first cutting operation carried out at a position indicated in solid lines and the second cutting operation carried out at a position indicated in two-dot chain lines. Thus, a belt-loop piece having two V-shaped cut ends is obtained. Meanwhile, it is also known to cut off a predetermined length of the material 7 by a single cutting operation and thereby obtain a belt-loop piece having two straight cut ends. However, in the case where opposite end portions of the belt-loop piece having the V-shaped cut ends are folded back, the folded-back end portions having the V-shaped cut ends are well covered by the remaining, intermediate portion of the belt-loop piece, even if those end portions may be folded back with low accuracy. Therefore, it is a recent common manner to cut a belt-loop material 7 into belt-loop pieces having V-shaped cut ends.
By the way, the connected belt-loop material 7 stored in the BLM storing device includes, as shown in FIG. 6, a plurality of connection portions 7a (only one 7a is shown in FIG. 6) at a substantially regular interval of distance. Each connection portion 7a has a width greater than that of the remaining portion of the belt-loop material 7. Therefore, one or each of the respective positions of the two guide members 133, 134 is adjusted so that the width of the guide groove 136 is equal to the width of each connection portion 7a and accordingly each connection portion 7a can smoothly pass through the guide groove 136. However, the belt-loop piece including the connection portion 7a is discarded, that is, is not used for sewing a belt loop to a garment material.
However, the remaining portions other than the connection portions 7a have a width which is smaller than those of the connection portions 7a and accordingly is smaller than that of the guide groove 136. It is the remaining portions that are used to provide useful belt-loop pieces. In the known BLM supplying device 130, each remaining portion cannot be accurately positioned, in a widthwise direction of the guide groove 136, relative to a cutting position where the fixed and movable blades 59, 60 of the cutting device 50 cut the belt-loop material 7. Therefore, the shape of the V-shaped cut ends of the belt-loop pieces cannot be stabilized, and accordingly the accuracy of cutting of the belt-loop material cannot be improved.